


Long as You Know

by ehmazing



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Adrenaline, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Kink Meme, Mid-Canon, Outdoor Sex, Post-Battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:28:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24143608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ehmazing/pseuds/ehmazing
Summary: Adrestia wins a battle, but Edelgard loses her composure.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 23
Kudos: 94
Collections: FE3H Kink Meme





	Long as You Know

**Author's Note:**

> CW for injuries, mentions of body disassociation, lots of dead bodies
> 
> Set mid-timeskip/pre-Byleth return in the war deadlock years. They are post B-support but not A (aka they have the Feelings, but no one has done anything about it). 
> 
> [Prompt: Edelbert, bloody outdoor sex](https://3houseskinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/476.html?thread=301020#cmt301020)
> 
> "after a battle, they're both bloody disheveled messes, adrenaline is high, and they just wanna Do It right then and there
> 
> either mutual feelings/pining that they've been too repressed to really discuss or do anything about (yet), or established (but not public, at least not outside of the rest of the beagles) relationship
> 
> \+ "i thought i lost you" desperation/relief"

“Nine hours,” Ladislava remarks. She’s planted her sword in the dirt in front of her, her arms crossed over the pommel to lean against it. “Nine hours to capture a wheat field without any wheat.”

There’s a deep gouge over the center of her nose, sluggishly clotting. Edelgard hadn’t been able to discern it until the rest of the blood on Ladislava’s face dried, proving the other splatters were not her own. She has urged her to see a healer at least a dozen times. She decides to try once more.

Ladislava shakes her head. “Not until you do, Your Majesty. Captain’s honor.”

It’s near impossible to cross the battlefield without tripping. The two of them have to watch every step as they go, avoiding sprawled limbs, broken bodies. More than once they kick, by accident, a fallen helmet, the clatter making the swarming crows scold them for the disturbance. Already the carts are making their rounds to pick the shields and unbroken spears out of the mud. They’ll be cleaned off, sharpened back to points. They’ll be redistributed to new hands.

Whenever a dead horse appears, like a rock jutting out of the sea, Edelgard fights with herself—should she look? Would it be easier to look or to ask? Ladislava is focused on finding the easiest path, walking ahead of Edelgard to show her where to step. If Edelgard asked her, she would have to stop, go back, examine each fallen beast. It would take more time. So Edelgard doesn’t ask. Whenever a horse appears, she forces herself to look.

She hasn’t yet found the one.

Finally, they reach the fringes of the imperial camp. The first group they pass are the civilians, sitting in a haphazard group to be counted by a rations officer. Edelgard is at least relieved to see they look clean, unharmed, and none of them are bound. No prisoner of war, she has long insisted, should ever be bound.

One of them catches sight of her: an old man, still wearing a tattered farmer’s cap on his head.

 _“Dragan dearg,”_ he snarls in Faersh, spittle catching in his long beard. _Red dragon._

Ladislava’s face contorts, understanding enough from his tone. But Edelgard holds out her hand, bidding her to keep her distance.

 _“Tá brón orm faoi do réimsí.”_ she replies. _I’m sorry about your fields._ The farmer’s rage slips, weaker than his shock at being addressed directly. Edelgard turns from his stunned gaze and moves on.

In the generals’ tent, Dorothea is standing behind Ferdinand’s chair and swearing as she attacks his hair with a comb and a small bowl of murky water. From his ears to the curling ends that fall over his shoulders, every strand is caked in dried muck.

“Ferdie, Goddess’ sake, it’s too long,” she snaps, dunking the comb in the water again. “By the time I fix it, you won’t have much left. Just let me cut it off.”

“No,” he insists, twisting his head to glare up at her. “Pull harder if you have to. But I’m not cutting it.”

“This is the stupidest test of pride you’ve yet—”

“Dorothea. Ferdinand,” Edelgard interrupts. The two of them snap to attention at once. Ferdinand hurriedly pushes back his chair to stand and bow. “I’ve finished the perimeter check. Where is everyone?”

Dorothea counts off on her fingers as she lists them: “Petra went ahead with the scouts to track the retreat. Linhardt’s with the medics, of course. Bern went with a party looking for a better source of water—the stream here’s too clogged now. Caspar, I think, is still on the field, looking for the wounded.”

“The two of us finished checking on supplies just half an hour ago,” Ferdinand adds. He frowns at Edelgard, one hand drifting up to point to his temple. “Your Majesty, it appears you’re still—”

“Never mind that.” Edelgard clenches her fists. There’s no other option now but to ask. “Where’s Hubert?”

“We thought…he’s not with you?” Dorothea asks, her fine brows furrowing.

Edelgard forces her voice to stay even. “No. He didn’t appear with the Imperial Guard when we began securing the perimeter. I assumed he would return here.”

Ferdinand shakes his head. “We haven’t heard anything. But he’ll show up when he’s least expected, as always. You should go to the medics now.”

“I’m fine.” Edelgard tugs off her gauntlets, tossing them to Ladislava. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“Edie, don’t be absurd,” Dorothea chides. Before Edelgard can stop her, she’s rounded the table, cupping the sides of Edelgard’s face to hold her head steady. “There’s blood all down to your chin. You look like a martyr’s icon.” She frowns harder, moving one hand to her forehead. “And you’re terribly warm. Do you feel feverish?”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Edelgard repeats, grabbing Dorothea’s wrists to pull her off, “and I can’t help being warm. It’s not settled down yet.”

The mention of _it_ brings twin looks of helplessness to Dorothea and Ferdinand’s faces. Were Edelgard in a better mood, she’d tease them for it— _Three years ago you couldn’t be in one room together, now you could put on a carnival mirror act._ But it’s hard to force a good mood when the heat in her chest still burns. If she were the one trusted with Ferdinand’s hair, one wrong movement could reduce his curls to ash.

“I’m going back out,” she announces, throwing her cape to Ladislava. “I’ll help Caspar. If you see Hubert, send him to me.”

Ladislava puts a hand on her sword hilt, stepping forward. “If you wish me to accompany you, Your Majesty,” she starts, but Edelgard doesn’t let her finish. She leaves the three of them in the generals’ tent, their worried stares following her with all the sting of arrows.

* * *

She doesn’t seek out Caspar. She goes looking for the horse.

It cannot be hard to find, she reasons, scanning the ground as she walks. It’s enormous. It’s black as night. It’s covered head to tail in thicker plate armor than most of the infantry wear. She should know it straightaway, should be able to practically sense it. But as Edelgard wanders, all she can sense is the growing unrest in her blood. The Crest of Flames is always like this after a fight. It pulls at her like a needy child tugging at her skirts.

In the beginning, battles could keep her awake for days afterward. The energy simply wouldn’t leave. Sometimes Hubert would try to stay awake alongside her, but he never lasted long. She’d find him asleep at his desk, even snoring upright in his chair.

 _You won’t any longer,_ sings a mocking voice in her head. _You’re out here to find him one last time._

Where’s that damned horse?

So focused on studying each body in her path, Edelgard almost collides head-on with one of the corpse collectors. If the man’s surprised to come face-to-face with his Emperor, he does a good job of not showing it. He finishes heaving the limp form of an archer onto his cart, taking off his cap to bow afterward.

“Y’Majesty. Looking for General Bergliez?” He nods in the direction she came from. “You passed him, little further west.”

“No, thank you.” It is so, so much harder to ask. “I’m looking for where most of our mages fell, during the cavalry charge. Have you seen a black horse among them? The largest you can imagine?”

The collector purses his lips, considering. After a moment, he says, “Think so. Big armored one, taken out at the legs?” He points to his right. “Head that way. Tread carefully—there’s some magic still lingering. The nastiest kinds tend to stick around.”

Edelgard can smell the miasma before she spies it. How ironic, for something poisonous to collect in harmless-looking little clouds. The patterns of blood on the ground are so strange, almost abstract in their forms, because there are so many more ways magic can cut. When the wind blows here, it feels much sharper than wind should be.

The horse, piteous thing, died with its eyes open. All around it, the bodies are charred beyond recognition, some of their forms still being lapped by soundless dark fire.

The saddle is empty. Beside it is a great pool of blood.

Edelgard’s ears are ringing. She rubs at her temples and finds her hands come away sticky with new blood. Caspar—she may as well find Caspar. His team is rescuing the injured, maybe he found him first. Maybe he took him to Linhardt already. Maybe he’s escaped the medics and has returned to Ferdinand and Dorothea.

_Maybe he’s been dead nine hours. All while you, the red dragon, ruined yet another piece of earth._

She passes another corpse cart, this time doesn’t stop when the collectors greet her. Further ahead, there’s a party of soldiers clustered around a large shape she can’t discern. It takes another hundred yards to see that it’s a supply wagon, its wheels too sunken to move. The soldiers have arranged themselves around it, taking positions to try and get it free. One stands apart at the front to direct them, calling out when to heave.

“Is that all you’ve got? One more, give it one more! Together, now!”

She thinks at first that she’s imagined it. But he barks another order and there can be no mistake.

“Hubert.”

She didn’t expect her voice to carry so loudly. The soldiers all freeze and turn. When they see a woman in red, they quickly sink to their knees, not caring of the mud. Only one remains standing.

“Your Majesty,” Hubert calls back. He bows no deeper or more shallow than usual. Pluck them out of the battlefield and he could be responding to her call from across any ordinary room. “Do you have need of me?”

Edelgard curls her fists tighter, feels her nails bite into her palms. Hubert stands, waiting. The left side of his jaw bears a wicked-looking bruise, but his arms aren’t bandaged, his legs standing straight. He’s shed his coat as the other soldiers have, all of them working in only doublets and rolled-up sleeves. From here, she can’t see a speck of blood on him.

“Your Majesty?” Hubert calls again.

Edelgard turns and marches away.

It’s increasingly hard to breathe. _Let me out,_ the fire in her cries, _I’m not finished yet._ She’s not careful this time; she kicks away whatever lies in her path. The crows, disturbed from their feast, scream at her for trespassing. She walks and walks, heels squelching in the mud, until she comes to the only landmark these fields possessed before the armies met: the remains of a fallen grain tower. She leans against the stone, her heart pounding in her ears. When she flexes her fingers, she can almost smell smoke.

“Your Majesty!”

Hubert walks with an even pace, unhurried, as though confident he could catch up no matter how far she got ahead. Edelgard wants to run to him. She wants to knock him down. She twists her arms behind her back, pressing herself hard against the tower to trap them there. She can taste ash in the back of her throat.

He stops a few feet from her. “Your Majesty,” he says, for the fourth, infuriating time, “your head’s bleeding.”

It takes all the strength in her not to crack the stone under her hands.

“The horns gouged me.”

Hubert’s face hardens. “You should’ve seen a healer by now.”

“I can’t feel them.” She closes her eyes. “I have a cracked rib too. Can’t feel it. Took a shield to the back at some point, can’t feel it. I’m not tired in the slightest. If the enemy came charging back this very moment, I could go another few rounds.

“But you—” She forces herself to breathe in, breathe out. “I saw your horse fall. That huge, stupid horse you’ve saddled with at least a hundred pounds of plate mail. You fell and I didn’t see you get back up.”

Hubert tilts his head. “Evidently, I did.”

“And yet you didn’t come back to me.”

He steps closer. “Where do you think I am now?”

 _“Hubert,”_ she yells, “I thought I’d lost you to capture a wheat field without any _fucking_ wheat.”

Even the crows pause.

“We were supposed to have won by now,” she seethes. “Supposed to have this over with. But I see no end to it. They are going to fight us tooth and nail for pauper’s fields. My soldiers—mine!—dying nowhere, for nothing. According to Arundel's grand plan, I am somehow expected to take Arianrhod and Fhirdiad, because _I_ am the army’s advantage. And yet I cannot even keep track of _you_ for one day’s border skirmish, and you apparently think this is nothing of concern!”

“I’m sorry that I didn’t report to you sooner. But you know I’m far from the most vital piece in this game. You may have to be prepared, at some point, to play without me.”

“Don’t patronize me with metaphors.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

“Then what is, Hubert? Do you really intend to live through this with me, for heaven knows how long? Or has that always been another platitude?”

“My lady.”

She hates that she opens her eyes for that. That she always does. Hubert is right in front of her. His hands come up to cup her face, like Dorothea did. His thumbs stroke along her cheekbones as though he could wipe away the long-stained blood.

“Your Crest is still acting on you. You’re letting it flare up.”

She manages to hiss, “I know,” before she frees her arms to pull him to her.

She doesn’t aim well enough. Their mouths crash with too much force, too much teeth. Hubert has to tilt her head between his hands to correct the angle, turning it from a collision into a proper kiss. He exhales in one long, slow breath that fans over her cheek. The moment she feels him start to pull away, she claws at his shoulders to bring him back, closer. One of his hands moves from her cheek to curl around the back of her neck. His skin feels cold to the touch, but she doubts that’s true—it’s her own skin that’s too hot, scorching everything it touches.

She’s aware that she’s not good at this. Her hands can’t decide where to land. They rake down his back, grip his arms, wind as tight as they can around his waist. She can sense, dimly, that she’s shaking, and that Hubert is trying to steady her. Then she licks into his mouth and he’s the one trembling.

“My lady,” he manages to gasp in the split-second her mouth leaves his. It’s so rare to hear from him anymore, between everyone else’s ‘Your Majesty’s. If he’d died, could she even recall the last time he said it? The fear of it curls in her stomach, falls from her mouth in a soft cry.

Her hands have made enough of a mess that Hubert’s shirt is rucked up at the sides. When she presses her palms to his bare skin, he surges forward, pressing them together fully from chest to hip. The sudden motion forces her backward—she loses her footing on the wet grass. They fall in a clumsy, tangled heap, barely managing not to crack their heads against the tower ruins on the way down.

Hubert braces his hands on either side of her to push himself up, giving her room, but the loss of contact makes Edelgard panic. She seizes his shirt again, yanking it all out so she can slide her hands up his chest. He feels so wonderfully cool in comparison, a balm for how hot her blood burns under her skin. By the way Hubert moans, pressing against her hands, maybe he feels the opposite.

“Never again,” she hears herself babbling, still trying to touch every part of him that she can reach. “You are never going to leave me again. Swear it.”

“I swear.”

“And mean it.”

He holds her face again, kisses her firmly. “I mean it.”

The way they’ve fallen, his legs rest between hers, her bent knees gripping the sides of his hips. Where their bodies meet, she feels like she’s going to burn though her clothes, even her armor. She has to claw at her skirts to get them out of the way. Hubert pants, watching her free her legs up to the hip.

“Prove it,” she orders.

But Hubert digs his hands into the ground. He will not be pulled any lower.

“You said you cracked a rib,” he reminds her.

He brushes a hand over her cheek again, and she whimpers from the touch alone. It only makes her want him more, makes her feel if she does not have him, she’ll surely burn to nothing. She and her Crest, one and the same.

“How did you describe it? How it felt when they took me away as a girl?” She grips his hips with her hands, fingers digging in. “Like you’d lost your limbs? I don’t feel like that. I feel like I lost my head, and yet my body has to find some way to keep moving on its own. A corpse up and walking.” The taste of ash is so strong in her throat she could choke on it. “Let me feel something _—_ anything—else.”

Hubert stares hard at her. And then he reaches between her legs.

He touches her sex delicately at first: just a glance from his fingers, so careful it could even be chaste. Were they in a bed, were they at peace, he would be so slow to touch her, trying to ensure each movement proceeded when they both were ready.

But they are sprawled on a muddy, blood-soaked field. They have no time, and never might. Edelgard takes his hand and presses it much harder, moving him where she wants in order to grind against it. For a few glorious minutes the friction sates her, the pressure of his fingers banking that terrible heat. Hubert’s hand is big enough to cover the whole length of her folds. She grinds against it herself until he understands her direction, then picks up speed as she feels herself grow wetter.

She realizes, in her haze, that her nails are scratching at his hip. The only blood he’ll spill the whole battle. On one pass, his fingers dip a little further in. She has to bite her tongue to stop herself from crying out.

“Hubert,” she gasps. “You have to—your fingers—”

She grabs his hand again, clumsily shaping them. She is sure neither of them are breathing as he pushes into her.

For the first time in hours, Edelgard feels a twinge of pain. The relief of it is overwhelming.

Hubert bends his arm to support himself as he lowers down, still avoiding putting any weight against her chest. His strokes inside her are jerky at first, awkward, but she manages to whimper instructions and soon he’s moving how she wants. When he presses higher, curling his hand in a different way, he barely manages to silence her with a kiss before she yelps.

“Come here,” she insists, trying to use her knees to pull down his hips.

Hubert resists, chuckling against her mouth. “This isn’t close enough?”

“I want to—I want to feel—”

“You’ll feel much more than you’d like soon.” He curls his fingers inside her again, pinning her at the shoulder with his other arm so that she won’t arch her back. “I won’t risk it.”

Edelgard huffs. She shifts until she can fit one leg between his, her knee pressed against his crotch. She worries for a moment that the edge of her greave will hurt, but Hubert inhales sharply, instinctively pressing himself down on it. How is the weight of him grinding back on her leg so good, so fitting? She thinks again of that bed they won’t get, a bed she could hold him down on so she could sink fully onto him. She reaches down to touch her clit as Hubert bucks against the hard armor covering her thigh. His hands don’t feel cold at all anymore.

“My lady,” he whispers, pressing his cheek against hers, “I won’t leave you. But if I die, I have to—”

“—Don’t—”

“—I have to tell you—”

She twists her head to bite at his neck, sinking her teeth in hard. _“Don’t.”_

Hubert’s hips stutter against her leg. He slides down far enough that his hardness bumps against her hand still working at her clit. He can’t stop her from arching her back this time, and oh, how it _hurts,_ how she can feel her spine protest. When Hubert kisses her again, nearly as sloppy as their first, she can no longer taste ash. She’s a body with a head, with all her limbs. She is no longer aflame.

She comes, all of things, when he kisses the side of her forehead, beneath the wound her crown left.

* * *

Linhardt treats her rib with the same clinical attitude he would give a scraped knee, and that itself is a strange but welcome comfort. When Edelgard turns to dress herself, though, she can practically feel his frown as he sees her back for the first time.

“This is a mess,” he scolds, delicately prodding one of the bruises. “What happened?”

Edelgard thinks of how sharp the rocks under her back were, once she noticed them.

“I was hit,” she answers calmly.

“You were hit,” Linhardt repeats flatly. He sighs as he casts another spell; some of the soreness abates. “At least it doesn’t look as terrible as Hubert’s face.”

“At least my face fared better than my horse,” Hubert smoothly responds. He turned to face the tent wall when she undressed, and only turns back once he hears her shake out her skirts. His jaw is indeed a swampy yellow now, but that’s still preferable to how it may have looked without a healer’s help.

Linhardt snorts. “Point made. Now if you’re no longer on the verge of death, I’ll take my leave.” He sends a withering look at Edelgard. “By the way, I don’t care that it’s tradition: next time, wear a crown less likely to stab you.”

“What sound advice. Thank you, Linhardt,” Edelgard dismisses him. He shakes his head as he slips out of the tent.

The silence that hangs over them is so thick, so heavy. Edelgard must use all her strength to lift it.

“You waited ten years to tell me of your attempted escape to Fhirdiad,” she says. “I didn’t intend to have you wait another ten before you can tell me what you meant to say.” She forces herself to swallow. “What you meant to say, if you should die.”

Hubert’s expression doesn’t change. “No, I agree with you. It wasn’t the right time.”

Of course. Exactly the answer she hoped not to hear.

“But my point is,” she continues, wringing her hands, “you may never have that. The right time. This war may go on another three years or more. If not now, when _will_ you tell me?”

Hubert shifts on his feet. He’s quiet for so long that she thinks that maybe he means to end the conversation by never answering.

But then he says, “When we’ve turned the tide. I’ll tell you then.”

“Hubert,” she presses, “I’ve just said we may never—”

“We will.” He crosses the room. He stands so close that she thinks he means to kiss her, but he only lays his hand against her cheek. “I swear.”

She will have to learn how to keep from watching him go.

**Author's Note:**

> [title inspo.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDvu1ehPq0g) do not look me in the eyes rn
> 
> Please forgive any errors in the Gaeilge language, as I do not speak it myself!
> 
> this is like 2/3 "war is hell" and 1/3 horny………I cannot seem to get these two to smash without exposition………


End file.
